Elden Ring Solved a Problem Nietzsche Identified 150 Years Ago

Nietzsche wrote about the "Last Man."6 The Last Man is the ultimate end-product of civilization. He has eliminated danger. He has eliminated struggle. He says "We have invented happiness" and he blinks. The Last Man is comfortable. He is warm. He has his little pleasures for the day and his little pleasures for the night. But he is incapable of greatness because he is incapable of suffering.

We live in the world of the Last Man. We have safety nets and air conditioning and algorithmic feeds that show us exactly what we want to see. We have smoothed the edges off existence.

But the human brain evolved in a world of edges. We evolved to hunt antelopes and run from lions. We possess a hardware architecture designed for high-stakes problem solving in an adversarial environment. When you put that hardware in a padded room, it malfunctions. It gets bored. It gets anxious. It invents conspiracy theories or starts Twitter mobs just to feel something.

Or it plays Elden Ring.